Novel modern terrestrial analogues for potential life-favouring environments on ancient Mars

古代火星上潜在的有利于生命的环境的新型现代陆地类似物

• 批准号: 2739605
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Southampton
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2739605
• 关键词: Novel; modern; terrestrial; analogues; potential

With the landing of the Mars2020 rover Perseverance, a new generation of Martian research is possible. This mission will return samples from Jezero crater, including those from settings that were likely wet (e.g., as evidenced by smectite clays and carbonate sequences) and therefore possibly habitable in the Martian past. Tremendous strides in proxy development have opened up windows to reconstructing past microbial ecology, pH and alkalinity on Earth. We propose to extend these advances to Martian samples, but such efforts will require a new generation of paleo-proxy validation and calibration in terrestrial analogues. These analogue locations include famous alkaline settings that remain unexplored using the planned methods: Lake Myvatn in Iceland, the Coorong coastal lagoon in Australia, and Lake Salda in Turkey. The student will use i) organic biomarkers to reveal ecologies associated with highly alkaline setting and ii) boron and nitrogen isotope analysis to provide perspectives of pH and alkalinity conditions. Additional biomarkers (e.g. glycerol ether lipids) will provide further constraints on pH. These parameters will help define the conditions of potential past life on Mars and expanded possibilities for biosignatures, particularly once Martian samples are returned and analysed in our labs in the coming years. The overarching goal is to develop an interdisciplinary strategy for exploring possible microbial ecology on ancient Mars, emphasizing alkaline settings that are hypothesised from Mars' wet past and shown on Earth are known to harbour large and diverse microbial communities. This study also speaks broadly to habitability on high-pH bodies such as Enceladus and exoplanetary water worlds as targets in the search for extraterrestrial life.

随着火星2020号探测器的登陆，新一代火星研究成为可能。这次使命将从热泽罗陨石坑返回样本，包括那些来自可能潮湿环境的样本（例如，正如蒙皂石粘土和碳酸盐序列所证明的那样），因此在火星的过去可能适合居住。代理开发的巨大进步为重建地球上过去的微生物生态、pH值和碱度打开了窗口。我们建议将这些进展扩展到火星样本，但这样的努力将需要新一代的古代理验证和校准在陆地类似物。这些类似的地点包括着名的碱性环境，这些环境尚未使用计划的方法进行勘探：冰岛的Myvatn湖，澳大利亚的Coorong沿海泻湖和土耳其的Salda湖。学生将使用i）有机生物标志物来揭示与高碱性环境相关的生态，ii）硼和氮同位素分析来提供pH和碱度条件的观点。这些参数将有助于确定火星上潜在的过去生命的条件，并扩大生物特征的可能性，特别是一旦火星样本在未来几年返回并在我们的实验室中进行分析。总体目标是开发一种跨学科的策略，用于探索古代火星上可能的微生物生态，强调从火星潮湿的过去假设并在地球上显示的碱性环境，已知这些环境拥有大量多样的微生物群落。这项研究还广泛地谈到了高pH值天体的可居住性，如土卫二和系外行星水世界，作为寻找外星生命的目标。